


Webs We Weave

by MadameFluffnStuff



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Big Brother Sokka (Avatar), Big Brother Zuko (Avatar), Domestic Fluff, F/M, Family Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Kataang - Freeform, M/M, Plot, Precious Aang (Avatar), Protective Katara (Avatar), and they were ROOMMATES, diabetes--diabetes everywhere, short!Aang, short!Aang because the babu hasn't hit his growth spurt yet lmao, the spider is a jumping spider you know the lil guys that wear raindrops for hats, zukka - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:08:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26577322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadameFluffnStuff/pseuds/MadameFluffnStuff
Summary: A spider has decided to move in. Aang has decided to let it stay....Zuko and Sokka did not agree on this new roommate, and they will do what needs to be done.
Relationships: Aang & Katara (Avatar), Aang/Katara (Avatar), Sokka & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 141





	Webs We Weave

**Author's Note:**

> This was a vent-write (because I had a horrifying IN MY FACE encounter with an airborne spider) that #1. I had _way_ too much fun writing and #2. Spiraled _far_ beyond what I imagined (and you'll see why lmao)
> 
> _Also jumping spiders are tiny and precious and wear raindrops as lil hats and Aang would take a bullet for one_

Aang had a considerable grip for someone more than two heads shorter than who he was trying to restrain. The young Avatar managed to hold Sokka back, nonetheless. “Stop it, guys!  _ Please! _ You can’t kill him!” 

Sokka shrugged Aang off. He side-stepped the airbender before he could weasel past him. The kitchen wasn’t big enough for Aang to do a tricky-trick on him this time.

Sokka almost felt bad when Aang’s cheeks puffed red and his fists clenched. Sokka had hit his growth spurt, so Aang had to tilt his head vertical to meet his (in all but blood) big brother’s eyes. He stood on his tip-toes, and Sokka had to bank on his warrior’s discipline not to laugh when Aang couldn’t even get his head  _ close  _ to his shoulder-level.

“You guys can’t kill him! It’s just—It’s just wrong!”

“Yeah, we can. Easily, in fact.” 

“ _ Sokka! _ ”

Sokka rolled his eyes not for the first time that night.

Behind Sokka and just beyond Aang’s reach, Zuko crouched close to the very small, very fuzzy, somewhat colorful eight-legged critter not even a full half-inch big. It huddled into the corner under the umbrella of its tiny web. Its legs looked almost too short for its body. Six of its beady eyes blankly stared at them, but the two eyes at the forefront—which were so big they almost looked like they were glued on—shined with a waxy gloss that rivaled the tears gathering in Aang’s eyes.

“B-But you can’t! Every life is sacred!”

Zuko made his finger into a blowtorch and crouched like a prince performing a formal execution on a war criminal. “It’s the natural order, Aang.”

“But you  _ can’t _ !”

Aang tried to dart past, but Sokka snagged him by the scruff of his robes. The short airbender yelped as his feet left the ground. He was as light as his element. He squirmed not too unlike Momo when he refused to bathe, but Sokka held him higher so his kicking legs couldn’t even toe the floor.

Aang’s face bloomed several shades of frustration and embarrassment, and Sokka made a mental note to thank Suki for teaching him some elemental chi-blocking. 

Because judging by the look on his little brother’s face, he would have been taking the brunt of all four elements five-times-over by now. 

“Sokka! Put me  _ down _ !”

“Sorry, but no can do, sport.” Sokka turned his head. “Do it, Zuko.”

Aang thrashed harder. “No, don’t! Zuko, please—!”

Katara—winded and whipping her head around like she was looking for a horde of assassins—appeared from around the corner like Aang’s plea had summoned her from across the continent. A warrior’s discipline and experience let her take in the scene at a glance. Sokka nearly rolled his eyes  _ again  _ when her glare zeroed-in on and burned  _ him _ in particular. 

Sokka wanted to rub his head.  _ Spirits _ , he had thought the constant headaches he got during the war would go away, but with stuff like  _ this _ always happening, it’s no wonder they were getting worse and worse. It felt like his head was about to split in two. 

Katara waterbended her liquid ammo back into her waterskin, though she didn’t become any less of a threat. “Sokka, put him down.  _ Now. _ And Zuko, what—What in the  _ world _ are you guys doing?”

“What must be done.”

Katara cocked her jaw at Zuko, grim-faced like a true executioner. “That explains so much and yet so little.”

Aang struggled more, but Sokka just held him higher and away from himself. 

“Katara! Katara, they’re gonna kill Bartholomew!”

Katara looked affronted. “ _ Bartholomew? _ ” She glared between Zuko and Sokka with equal levels of disgust. 

Zuko and Sokka shared a side-eyed glance and an exasperated sigh. 

“Katara, look,” Sokka said, gesticulating with even Aang who was hanging from his grasp like a polarbeardog pup by its scruff, “the spider has to go. It’s a pest, and Zuko and I are not going to let those things curl up and make their home wherever they damn well please. They can hide in the rafters or whatever, but not out in the most open corner of the kitchen. If you let them see that there’s no threat in places where we don’t want them, then, before you know it, we’ll have  _ dozens _ of them in the kitchen.”

Zuko sagely nodded. His finger was still a torch. Bartholomew’s six small and two abnormally large eyes reflected the red glow of its would-be murder weapon but were otherwise as black as ink and void of fear. “Have to make an example out of it.”

“Thank you,  _ Zuko _ , for listening to reason.”

“He’s not hurting anything!” Aang gave up his struggle and hung limp in Sokka’s one-handed grip. The young Avatar’s pooled robes made him look even smaller, and Sokka could  _ feel _ the blinding rays of his wounded pigmypuma eyes getting bigger. “Bartholomew just likes to hang out and watch you cook and—”

Sokka held Aang to his eye-level and got nearly nose-to-nose with his little brother. “It is a  _ spider _ , Aang.”

Aang poked Sokka’s chest. “ _ He  _ is my  _ friend _ , Sokka.”

Katara crossed her arms. Despite themselves, Sokka and Zuko both flinched. “Zuko, put that out. Sokka, put Aang down.  _ Now. _ ”

Sokka, in fact, did not put Aang down. He returned her glare with his own and subtly stepped between his love and his sister as he felt the heat of her glare reach the capacity to melt steel bars.

“I can’t do that, Katara.”

“Well, you’d better figure out how before I  _ make you _ , Sokka.”

The searing  _ whish _ of Zuko’s finger-torch got stronger. Aang pawed Sokka’s hand on the back of his robe’s collar and cursed his genetics into oblivion for not having hit his presumed growth spurt yet. 

“Zuko,  _ don’t _ !  _ Please! _ ”

Zuko growled. He put his torch out and threw his arms up. “Fine! Whatever! Just give me a cup or something and I’ll take it outside!”

Aang looked appalled. “You can’t!”

“Why the hell not?”

Aang fiddled with the end of his robe. “He’s—Bartholomew’s been inside too long. He won’t know how to survive outdoors. And he isn’t—”

Sokka groaned. His urge to bang his migraine-aching head into the wall was becoming more of a compulsion that bordered on a  _ need _ .

“—the outdoor spiders don’t like him? And what if—” 

“Do it, babe.”

The torch was back. “On it.”

“ _ No! _ ” 

Aang got free of Sokka’s grip but didn’t stay free for long. Airbender or not, Sokka was a big brother, and he easily scooped the young monk off his feet again in a light but firm headlock. Aang wiggled and pushed against him, but Sokka tightened his grip. “Bartholomew!” Aang cried out as he reached out to his tiny insect friend.

Katara snarled. “Sokka, put him  _ down _ ! He’s not— _ Zuko. Don’t. You.  _ **_Dare_ ** **.** ” 

Zuko paused his finger-torch an inch away from its target. The chilly voice that bent the Southern Raiders to their knees crawled like frost freezing over into his ears. 

The pressure in the room nearly crushed them. The universe rippled in a strange way that made the hairs on the napes of their necks stand on end. He and Sokka looked at each other before turning inches at a time to face the tempest-made-flesh who was glaring them down.

Katara’s eyes held the promise of bloodshed, and her voice bellied the threat of major bodily harm. Arms crossed and hackles raised like a sabretooth-mooselion, she stalked towards them. 

“You two are not going to lay hand or foot on Bartholomew.  _ Got it? _ ”

Sokka rolled his eyes  **_again_ ** and tightened his slippery grip on the escape-artist whining and wiggling in his hold. He wound one of his arms around Aang’s middle to pin him flush against him. “Or what? Are you going to freeze our—”

“ _ Don’t give her any ideas, you idiot _ ,” Zuko hissed. He put his fire out and stood, though he subtly-but-not-as-subtly-as-he-thought shimmied away from the heated waterbender so that he had partial cover behind his boyfriend.

Sokka turned to him with half-lidded eyes and a half-blinding migraine. “Not you, too. Come on, guys, it’s a  _ spider _ . It’s not like it’s a puppy or—”

Sokka looked down. The kicked puppy trapped in his arms was looking up. Aang’s grey eyes were miserable puddles of pleading that were so dilated that Sokka almost fell into their tear-filled abyss. 

“Please, Sokka?” 

Aang’s voice broke, and when Katara clasped her hands to her chest in a heartbroken  _ aw _ while simultaneously letting her brother know her  _ very clear _ intent to shed blood should Aang shed a tear, Sokka rolled his eyes so hard that his whole head nearly rolled with them. 

Aang tugged the arm around his neck with his one free hand, and he somehow changed his facial anatomy to make his eyes even  _ bigger _ .

“Pretty please?”

Sokka sighed. “ _ Fine.  _ You can keep the damn spider.”

Aang smiled so brightly that Sokka had to look away to save himself from being blinded. He let Aang go and tried to nurse the now  _ full _ headache he had. 

Aang raced to his pest-pet and cooed it like it was a newborn. Zuko touched Sokka’s shoulder to offer his condolences and share his frustrations...and to shimmy further out of Katara’s path.

Katara smiled and nodded like they were soldiers in battle who had satisfied their honor. Sokka stuck his tongue out at her. She returned the gesture in kind. Zuko backed him up, and Katara grumbled and looked away in defeat.

Zuko and Sokka, without looking, shared a small high-five.

Aang zoomed up to them and gave his de facto big brothers a group hug. He jumped on the balls of his feet and thanked them profusely. Thankfully, he couldn’t see the moment when the two of them went braindead to his rambling and just nodded when he stopped for breath.

Behind her boyfriend, Katara kissed Aang’s arrow. She plopped her head on top of his as she wrapped her arms around his waist. Aang placed his hands on hers and smiled so wide that the force of it had Zuko and Sokka bracing themselves from being blown backward.

Katara tugged her rambling boyfriend flush against her chest, and she protectively curled around him. When her eyes met their others’, she stuck her tongue out again.

Sokka huffed. He side-stepped Zuko and mirrored his sister’s maneuver with  _ his _ boyfriend. 

Zuko blushed in Sokka’s arms, Aang redirected his smile to his Sifu Hotman, and Sokka returned his sister's stuck-out tongue with a hidden middle finger in addition. 

Aang, with his smile creeping dangerously close to a supernova, looked back and forth between the water tribe siblings until Zuko,  _ done _ with this and ready for a nap or a drink or both, gave the airbender a partial head-pat like he really was a polarbeardog. 

...(later that day)

“ _ No! _ No, Sokka, wait! You can’t!”

“I _can_! I _will_! I’m _gonna_! And you will _watch_ _me_! Now get out of the way, Aang!”

“But it’s true love! Petunia is his Forever Girl!”

“I cannot put into words the  _ depth _ and  _ intensity _ of the  **_fuck_ ** I do not give! Now  _ move _ !”

“Think of their children, Sokka!”

“I  _ AM _ THINKING OF THEIR CHILDREN!”

Zuko saved his and Katara’s boyfriends from bodily harm while Katara quickly but quietly set up the terrarium she and Zuko had special-ordered for Bartholomew (and now Petunia, as well).

Aang still kept it in the kitchen, though. He didn't want to stress out his ‘lil babu’ and his ‘lil babu’s babu’ by moving them to a change in scenery.

Sokka (gently but with  _ passion _ ) flicked the corner of the glass whenever he walked by. Zuko flipped it the bird.

Aang saw neither action. He just smiled and melted into Katara’s hug as he relished thinking about how well all of his friends were getting along.

Bartholomew and Petunia watched on from their new home in the corner on the counter.

And they watched.

And they watched.

And they watched.

And though they were nocturnal, they always crawled out of their hide when the humans’ voices drew near so that they could watch them some more.

...That night—Petunia’s first in the house, to Sokka’s dismay—Bartholomew and Petunia crawled onto the clump of bark and moss outside their burrow. The moon was full, and some of its light reached the terrarium just like Aang had hoped their  _ minor _ change of scenery would do. 

They curled their thin legs together and sat in the strongest of the moon’s rays. And, once everything was quiet and all were asleep, Bartholomew turned to his companion and shared his thoughts with her.

/This Avatar is a strange one./

/Very./ Petunia curled closer to his side. /The two males are very quick to violence, it seems. The Avatar’s mate, as well. I’m surprised you didn’t blast the firebender into the Spirit Wilds./

/I was going to, but I was curious to see how the situation would unfold. I probably should have taken a different form. The lemur and skybison said their master would take interest instead of offense to this form. They failed to mention the opinions of the others sharing his dwelling./

/I’m sorry, my love. It won’t be too much longer, now, will it? Because I swear on the Ancients themselves, if the firebender’s mate flicks the glass one more time, I will flick him into—/

/Calm yourself, my dear. It won’t be too long. The web is set, and we need him near if it is to work./

/I suppose that is one benefit to this form, then./

/Aye./ Bartholomew drummed all of his legs like he was shifting his weight impatiently. /He is the last one Hei Bai took into his forest during the Solstice. Thankfully,  _ it  _ hasn’t festered long enough to corrupt his spirit./

/Because of the firebender?/

Bartholomew pawed the bits of a dead leaf and would have grumbled if he had a voice. /Yes. And he’s lucky, too, because otherwise I would not have hesitated to banish him and his mate to the Spirit Wilds./

Petunia touched her legs to his and gently herded him back to their den. One of her legs gently tapped his back. /I’m sure you would have, dear./

**Author's Note:**

> _The spiders know all._
> 
> part II idk maybe if I get attacked by another airborne spider hahaha -_-


End file.
